Generator sets have long been known in the art and typically include a housing to which one or more removable panels are attached. When a component within the generator set housing is in need of servicing and/or inspection, the panel may be detached from the housing to facilitate the servicing/inspection operation. Thereafter, the panel may be reattached to the frame of the generator set housing. In many cases, these removable panels are attached to the frame of the housing using simple bolts that are mated to nutserts that are permanently affixed to the frame of the generator set housing. As such, the bolts must be completely detached from the underlying frame in order to remove the particular panel. In some instances, the bolts may become lost, and often not replaced, leading to removable panels that are less than securely reattached to the underlying frame of the generator set housing.
In some jurisdictions, regulations may require that some removable panels for generator sets be attached with captive fasteners that either remain connected to the generator set housing or to the removable panel when the panel is detached from the housing for a servicing and/or inspection operation. In some instances, these captive fastener requirements may be applied retroactively to older generator sets already in the field that are not yet in compliance with the new regulation. Generator sets are often large stationary machines that can not be readily moved to a convenient location to undergo a retrofitting operation to be made compliant with captive fastener regulations. Thus, the owners of these existing generator sets may be left in an awkward problematic position in bringing their generator sets into compliance with captive fastener regulations. One such regulation may be the European Union Machinery Safety Directive (1.4.2.1) that governs the removal and attachment of removable panels for certain machines.
The present disclosure is directed toward overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.